


take it from me

by complicationstoo



Series: STB Bingo Round One [7]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, First Kiss, Getting Together, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, M/M, Sharing Clothes, Steve Rogers Is a Good Bro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:13:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28195989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/complicationstoo/pseuds/complicationstoo
Summary: “Give me my hoodie back, you gremlin.”“It’s not yours anymore,” Tony says, rolling over to mash his face into the pillow. The blanket slips down to reveal a shirt that Bucky last remembers seeing over a month ago. “You lost your rights to it when you left it on my side of the room.”Alternately, Tony's a terrible roommate, Bucky is annoyed, and somehow they fall in love.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark
Series: STB Bingo Round One [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2037892
Comments: 17
Kudos: 466
Collections: STB Bingo: Round One





	take it from me

**Author's Note:**

> Written for my Steve | Tony | Bucky Bingo square:  
> I2 - Clothes Sharing
> 
> Title comes from Take It From Me by Jordan Davis :)

Bucky isn’t surprised, really, when he realizes that it’s been two weeks since he last saw his favorite t-shirt and even longer since he last saw his most comfortable hoodie. He sighs at the empty drawer in front of him, then closes it a little too hard. 

He stalks over to the bed on the other side of the dorm room and pokes his sleeping roommate’s cheek. Tony groggily swats at his hand, not opening his eyes as he mumbles, “Go away.”

“Give me my hoodie back, you goddamn gremlin.”

“It’s not yours anymore,” Tony says, rolling over to mash his face into the pillow. The blanket slips down to reveal a shirt that Bucky last remembers seeing over a month ago. “You lost your rights to it when you left it on my side of the room.”

“Oh, so by that logic, I can take your backpack? It’s technically over the line.” 

Bucky crosses his arms over his chest, glaring at the backpack that’s an eighth of an inch over the blue taped line across the floor, which was put there four days after they moved in together. He only did it because Tony kept acting like he was living alone. Tony left things wherever he wanted, let his friends sit on Bucky’s bed whenever they came over (with shoes on for God’s sake), kept lights on at ungodly hours of the night, and slept through all four of his alarms on the first day of his morning class. The line was supposed to be a reminder that he had a roommate, that only half of the room was actually his, but instead it created a problem of malicious compliance with the rule Bucky unintentionally set with it when he declared that nothing of Tony’s was allowed to cross the line anymore, then claimed the blanket that fell onto his side by accident as his own now. 

But it turns out that Bucky has a tendency to leave his laundry baskets on the wrong side of the room when he’s in a hurry, which is more often than not. The blanket wasn’t worth the loss of half his clothing. 

“So take it then. Teach me my lesson,” Tony snorts. “Maybe finish my French homework for me while you’re at it.”

“I’m going to start walking around naked if you steal all my clothes,” Bucky threatens, and that gets Tony to lift his head to look at him. Tony’s eyes rake up and down his body, and it’s only then that Bucky remembers that he’s already shirtless right now. He adjusts his arms to cover more, blushing all the way down his neck. 

“Is that a promise?” Tony grins. 

Bucky rolls his eyes, walking back to his dresser to find something else to wear for now. “You won’t like it as much the first time one of your friends comes over.”

“As if I wouldn’t invite them over more frequently after that. Art is meant to be shared with the world, Buckaroo.”

He flushes an even deeper red at the remark. In different circumstances, one where Tony wasn’t the world’s most annoying roommate right from minute one, Bucky thinks he could have actually really liked him. If they were just out, at the library or the coffee shop around the corner, Bucky would have flirted with him without hesitation. He’s everything Bucky likes in a guy - a few inches shorter than him, curly brown hair that looks incredibly soft, Bambi-like eyes that show off his every emotion clear as day. 

Bucky would have used his good lines, even, not the cheesy pickup lines that have been used thousands of times before. He would have said something a little too honest about never seeing a face that pretty before, and he wouldn’t have even waited an hour to text him if he were lucky enough to get his number. 

But instead, Tony walked into their dorm room on that first day almost two months ago and proceeded to ignore every basic rule of human decency, so now he can’t let himself be charmed by him, even though he can begrudgingly admit to himself that Tony is pretty damn cute in Bucky’s clothes. 

“I’m going to report you to the police for theft.”

“Wow, I’m shaking.”

“You’re a menace to society.”

“All of society?” Tony laughs.

“All of it,” Bucky confirms firmly, finally settling for a sweater he hasn’t worn in two years that his mom probably snuck into his boxes when he moved. It was a Christmas gift from his grandma, and she thinks that’s supposed to mean he likes it, when really it’s itchy and the collar is too tight around his neck. 

“You look like you belong in an Old Navy ad,” Tony says. 

“I’m choosing to take that as a compliment.”

“It wasn’t meant as one.”

Bucky grins, but only because Tony can’t see his face right now to know that he’s amused. “Then you should get better insults.”

Tony huffs, and Bucky turns back around just in time to see him flop back down on the bed like a rag doll. His hair puffs out around his head, an unruly mess of tangled curls that could desperately use a trim, and Bucky bites his lips to control his smile this time. 

“Don’t you have a class to get to?”

Tony makes a noncommittal grumbling sound, something that might have been a word but Bucky can’t tell which one. 

“‘s’not important,” he murmurs. “Just physics.”

“Just physics,” Bucky repeats under his breath, shaking his head. Only Tony has the confidence that he can miss every single class in a tough subject and still pass with flying colors. Although, Bucky considers, he’s probably the only person that it’s actually true for. 

Bucky grabs his own backpack, nudging Tony’s back over the line with the toe of his shoe, and says, “Well, I’m going to mine, and if my clothes are back in my drawers before I get back at three, I won’t shave half of your head in your sleep tonight.”

“If you shave half of my head, I’m taking scissors to your blue hoodie.”

Bucky gapes, “You wouldn’t.”

“Scissors and a lighter,” Tony smirks devilishly. “Don’t start a war with me, Barnes. I have what Pepper calls ‘a complete and utter lack of self-preservation skills,’ and I’m not afraid to use them.”

“I hate you.”

“Liar,” Tony laughs, and the worst part is that he’s right. 

***

Bucky decides that getting his clothes back isn’t an option, because he made the rule and he can’t reverse it now, but turnabout is completely fairplay. Everything of Tony’s that even slightly touches the blue tape becomes his, which isn’t actually much. But one day a few weeks later, a shirt ends up half a centimeter over the line, and Bucky snatches it up immediately. Tony isn’t there when he puts it on the next morning, but he’ll see it later for sure. 

Bucky can’t really move much in the confines of the too small t-shirt, and the band logo is stretched across his chest to the point that it’s almost illegible. Steve squints at it when he walks into class. 

“What are you wearing?”

“Tony’s shirt,” Bucky replies, taking his seat next to Steve and pulling out his notebook. He reaches for a pen and writes today’s date in the top corner of a blank page. 

“Why?”

“I’m making a statement,” Bucky says, folding his arms over his chest. His biceps flex with the action, and the seam on the sleeves makes a threatening sound. 

“Is that statement that you don’t own any clothes that fit?”

“Technically, yes. He stole all of mine, so now I’m stealing his.”

Steve sighs, “Is this part of a problem that normal people would have solved with a conversation like adults?”

“First of all, fuck you. Second of all, Tony is a demon and therefore cannot be treated like a normal person. You don’t solve problems with demons with conversations, Steve. You solve them by outsmarting them. Watch more TV.”

“You’re trying to outsmart a literal genius?”

“Yes.”

“And you don’t see the problem with that?”

“No.”

Steve calls him a dumbass with just the look on his face. “Alright. Good luck, I guess.”

“Thank you for your unwavering support and faith in me,” Bucky says sarcastically. “I can always count on you to have my back.” 

Steve flips him off with a laugh, but that’s fine, because when Bucky gets back to the dorm after his classes, the look on Tony’s face is worth Steve’s judgment. 

Tony’s jaw drops and his eyes go impossibly wide. “Oh my God, what have you done to my shirt?” 

“Don’t you mean  _ my  _ shirt? You left it on my side of the room.”

“I did not!” Tony protests. 

“Slightly over the line is still over the line,” Bucky smirks. “Now, if you were interested in a trade, that could perhaps be arranged.”

Tony glares at him indignantly. “What do you want?”

“My blue hoodie.”

“Not on the table,” Tony shakes his head. 

“What? Why not?”

“It’s the best hoodie I have, and that’s only a decent shirt. I’ve got another that looks almost identical to it. Pick something else.”

Bucky huffs, “Fine, I want my Yankees t-shirt back.”

“Oh, yeah, you can have that,” Tony agrees a little too easily, and Bucky feels like he wasted his bargaining chip. He gets up from his bed and opens the bottom drawer of his dresser, yanking it out from the bottom of the pile. “It was contaminating everything else, anyway.”

Tony holds out the shirt, but moves it back when Bucky reaches for it. “Nope, take mine off first. Haven’t you ever traded hostages before? You don’t give the kidnapper what they want before making sure they’re keeping up their end of the deal.”

Rolling his eyes, Bucky pulls off the shirt, and they exchange them at the same time. Tony tsks at the way the collar has stretched on his. “What has this man done to you?”

“I’m sure it’ll recover from the trauma eventually.”

“After ten washes, maybe,” Tony scoffs. “Why are your shoulders so damn broad?”

“Maybe you’re just small.”

It was the wrong thing to say, because Tony squawks and hits him with the shirt. “Take that back. I’m perfectly average sized, you’re just a giant.”

“Is perfectly average really a good thing?” Bucky retorts. 

“The international average for men is 5’6”, so actually I’m above average.”

“Sounds like you’ve done an awful lot of research on that,” Bucky says, eyebrows raised. “Got a complex going on?”

Tony narrows his eyes at him. “I’m burning the hoodie.”

***

“Goddamnit, Tony,” Bucky groans, looking at his textbook sitting on Tony’s desk. His demon roommate looks back at him with faux innocence. “There’s no way that was on your side of the room.”

“Ah, but it was,” Tony grins, spinning around in his desk chair and steepling his fingers beneath his chin like a cartoon villain. “Apparently we’re counting things that touch the tape now, and you didn’t watch where your stuff went when your backpack tipped over yesterday.”

“Come on, man,” Bucky whines, and he’d care more about the embarrassing tone if the situation was less dire. “I have an exam tomorrow.”

“What a shame.”

“What do you want for it?”

Tony purses his lips in thought, then proposes, “I want a large coffee with three shots of espresso, two pumps of hazelnut syrup, one pump of vanilla, whipped cream, and a dash of cinnamon on top.”

“You’re fucking with me,” Bucky says flatly. “Tell me that’s not your actual coffee order.”

“It is,” Tony replies haughtily, not at all ashamed of it like he should be. Bucky personally thinks that anyone with more than one modification to their order shouldn’t be allowed to have coffee anymore, and the people with five or more should be banned completely from all coffee establishments. His brief stint as a barista in high school didn’t endear him to people with fancy orders at all. 

“I’m not ordering that.”

“Then I guess you’ll be failing -” Tony looks over his shoulder to read the cover of the book “- organic chemistry. Yikes, that’s already a tough one, isn’t it? That sucks.”

“You are a goddamn goblin.”

“I told you not to start wars with me,” Tony shrugs, unbothered. He plays absentmindedly with the strings of his hoodie, and it’s only then that Bucky realizes that it’s actually one of his. It hangs loosely off his frame, covering his hands completely with the long sleeves, and Bucky hates that his instant reaction is to be even more attracted to him. “And I preferred being a menace, by the way. More fun.”

“I’ll let you keep my blue hoodie forever if you give me the book.”

Tony’s eyes light up. “Really?”

“Really,” Bucky sighs, even though it pains him a little to do it. He really liked that hoodie.

“You won’t try to take it back?” Tony asks, still skeptical. “Not even in a trade?” 

“It’s yours for life.”

“You promise?”

Bucky throws his hands in the air. “How many times do I have to say yes?”

“At least one more,” Tony says. He stands up, holding the book in his left hand and lifting his right with his pinkie sticking out. 

“A pinkie promise? Are we ten?”

“A pinkie promise is the most sacred vow a person can make,” Tony says seriously. “If you break it, I will know forever that you are a terrible person.”

Locking his finger with Tony’s, Bucky says, “You have my word that the hoodie is yours until the day you die. But, if you die before me, I’m taking it back. I want it in your will that it goes to me.”

“Deal,” Tony laughs. 

He hands over the book, and Bucky gets right to work on studying for his exam. The miracle of all miracles occurs when Tony doesn’t make another sound for the rest of the night, letting him focus completely without interruption.

***

“If you get a stain on that shirt, I’m suing,” Bucky says as he watches the grease from Tony’s cheeseburger drip down his wrist. 

“What for?” Tony licks away the greasy trail with the tip of his tongue, and Bucky hands him one of the napkins from the dispenser instead. 

“Destruction of property.”

“But it’s mine.”

“It’s yours until I find something to trade you for it, and when I get it back, I would like it to still be in good condition.”

Tony grins, “You could just get me that coffee I asked for before.”

“Never.”

“Hey, don’t knock it ‘til you try it.”

“If you’re out of breath by the time you finish saying your order, your order is too long,” Bucky informs him, sipping loudly from the remains of his strawberry milkshake. 

Tony snorts, “Says the man who just customized every ingredient on his burger.”

“I don’t like tomatoes or pickles. That’s different.”

“It’s really not,” Tony says. “You also changed the type of cheese and added onions. You created a completely new menu item. Just admit that you’re a hypocrite.”

“You put whipped cream on coffee.”

“I like to balance my caffeine with sugar.”

“You’re going to have a heart attack before you’re thirty.”

Tony shrugs and manages to fit a quarter of the burger in his mouth in one single bite. Bucky switches the topic of conversation to stop his mind from thinking about the fact that Tony can open his mouth impressively wide. 

“So, what are your plans for break?”

“Break?” Tony frowns, washing down his mouthful with his chocolate milkshake. 

“Yeah. Thanksgiving break is next week.”

“Huh.”

Bucky raises his eyebrows. “You forgot?”

“I, uh, haven’t been thinking about it much,” Tony says. He picks at the napkin in his hand, ripping off the corner of it. “My family doesn’t really do holidays, so.”

“What do you do for Thanksgiving then?”

“Dad works all day, and Mom usually hosts some charity thing that we all get dragged to. I don’t think we ever did the traditional thing.” 

Bucky nods, not quite knowing what to say. Tony doesn’t exactly seem happy about it, but he doesn’t seem like the type that would respond well to anything that sounds like it might be pity. 

“Ours is usually three straight days of complete chaos,” Bucky finally says. “My grandparents come in from out of town, so my sisters all get jammed into one room, and I have to sleep on the couch in the basement so they can take our rooms. My mom cooks enough for a hundred people, then she complains when we have too many leftovers to fit in the fridge. My grandpa spends the whole time telling us stories from the war, and honestly they’re never appropriate. Pretty sure I’ve heard the one about the prostitutes in Paris at least a dozen times.”

Tony laughs, “That’s better than going to a gala in a tux and having your dad try to set you up with every business partner’s daughter. I feel like I’m in the fourteenth century trying to create an alliance with another country through marriage.”

“No, my parents just ask me if I found myself a nice boy yet, and then my grandma tries to set me up with the grandson of one of the ladies she plays bingo with.” 

“It’s nice to know that old people are consistent no matter where they come from.”

Bucky’s reply is cut off by a pickle landing on the front of Tony’s shirt and smearing it with ketchup and mustard on the way down. 

Tony gives him a sheepish smile. “Oops.”

***

By the time winter break rolls around, Bucky has lost almost all of his shirts and sweatshirts, but negotiated around half of them back. He’s starting to suspect that Tony is purposely letting some of his own things cross the line just for Bucky to take, because while he is a demon, he isn’t actually a complete asshole. He’s also a better roommate in general lately, and Bucky wonders if he was too harsh in the beginning. 

Tony never shared a room with anyone else before, while Bucky grew up with a packed house. The things that seemed obvious to him were probably brand new for Tony, and Steve might have been right about the solution being as simple as a conversation. Not that he’ll ever tell him that, of course. 

From everything Bucky knows about Tony now, he might as well have lived alone growing up. He never went home at all for Thanksgiving, and when Bucky asks him about his Christmas plans, he casually mentions that he’s staying in Malibu while his parents take a vacation somewhere tropical. His eyes don’t hide anything, though, and Bucky can see that it hurts more than he lets on. 

Maybe that’s why when he goes home for Christmas and spots some of the older hoodies he left behind when he moved, his first thought is that he should take them back with him for Tony. His second is that he must be losing his damn mind if that’s the first. But he gets the feeling that Tony likes wearing them, because he almost never wears his own clothes now. His closet is overstuffed with expensive brands and items more fashionable than anything Bucky owns, yet it’s always Bucky’s clothes he reaches for in the morning. 

Bucky takes them all back to Boston with him without letting himself think about why. 

He leaves one of them crumpled by the door, as if it fell from the laundry basket and he didn’t notice. Tony picks it up when he gets home a little after midnight from the library, while Bucky pretends to be asleep. He cracks one eye open to catch the small smile on Tony’s face when he tucks it into his dresser before getting in bed. 

The next falls just a hair over the line when Bucky takes it off before going into the bathroom to shower. Tony already has it on by the time he gets out of the shower, and Bucky doesn’t comment on it like he normally would. 

The third is a bargaining chip to get back something he actually does miss, and Tony definitely gives up too much to get it. Three t-shirts, a pair of sweatpants, and two pairs of socks come back to him for just the one hoodie, and Tony only pretends to be put out by losing all of it during the negotiation. 

“Where were you hiding this one?” Tony asks as he takes it from him. “I haven’t seen it before.”

“Brought it back from home for the express purpose of getting my pants back,” Bucky tells him, and it is partially true, at least. He did really want those sweatpants back. 

Tony bites his lip, and his voice is quiet when he asks, “I’m not actually bothering you with this, right? Because if I am, you can have it all back. I - I don’t want to upset you. I never wanted that.”

Bucky freezes where he was putting his socks away. “You’re not bothering me, Tony. I mean, you were a little annoying at first, but I probably overreacted with the whole tape thing. And the thing with the clothes, that’s - it’s kind of fun now, right? Like, it’s just a thing we do.”

Tony nods, but he doesn’t look completely convinced. 

“Look, this isn’t bothering me, I like doing it, and I’m not upset with you.”

“Okay,” Tony says, smiling a little. “So you won’t care if I tell you that I have your molecular biology textbook now?”

“Oh, fuck.”

***

“Don’t you think this has gone on for long enough?” Steve asks when he sees Bucky walk into their study room at the library dressed in another one of Tony’s shirts. This time it’s a sweater that was oversized on Tony and just barely manages to fit him. It’s tight around the arms and chest, but Bucky thinks Steve wouldn’t have been able to tell at all that it’s actually Tony’s if it wasn’t for the designer logo in the corner. He doesn’t even plan on using it in a trade later, because he kind of likes it. 

“Not at all.”

“Can you please just tell him that you like him? This is getting to be very middle school.”

Bucky rolls his eyes. “That’s not what’s happening here.”

“Isn’t it, though? Even Sam thinks so.”

“Oh, does he now? I don’t remember asking for his opinion, or yours, for that matter.”

Steve flicks his earlobe. “Too bad ‘cause you’re getting it anyway.”

“As if anyone could stop Steve Rogers from sharing his opinion,” Bucky huffs, and he knows it’s a little mean, but he can’t help himself from saying it regardless.

“Don’t be an ass just because you’re too much of a chicken to ask him out.”

“I’m not a chicken, and I’m also not interested in dating him.”

Steve hums like he doesn’t believe a word that Bucky’s saying. “Yeah, okay, sure. So we haven’t talked about him in almost every single conversation we’ve had in the last seven months.”

“You brought him up.”

“You’re wearing his sweater.”

“I’m making a statement,” Bucky repeats his remark from many months ago, but this time it isn’t as true. 

“Yeah, but not the statement you think you’re making,” Steve scoffs. “This one says ‘I’m hopelessly into my roommate but refuse to ask him out, so instead I’m wearing his clothes and pretending it’s normal.’”

“What’s the statement going to be when I stab you with my pencil?”

“Just more denial, honestly.”

Bucky sighs, opening his textbook to where they left off the day before, “Can we just study, please?”

Steve drops the subject and doesn’t mention it again for the rest of the evening, but Bucky thinks about it while he walks back to the dorm. It’s not a revelation that he’s interested in Tony, not even to himself. He would have to have a complete lack of self-awareness to be ignorant of his growing affection for him, even though he tried to stave it off for as long as possible. The only question is how Tony feels about him, and it’s not a large leap to say that he’s interested, too. It has been, however, just big enough of one to keep him from doing anything about it so far. 

He gets back to the dorm on the muscle memory alone, arriving at his door without even realizing it. Tony’s laying on his bed when he walks in, dressed in one of Bucky’s t-shirts and a pair of plaid pajama pants that might have been his at one point, too. 

He looks at Tony, then at the line of blue tape that’s still on the floor, and he decides that maybe enough really is enough. The tape peels off the floor easily, in one long strip that he bunches into a ball to throw into the trash can. 

“What are you doing that for?” Tony sits up and puts his phone down. 

Bucky doesn’t answer and instead walks over to sit on the edge of Tony’s bed. He glances down at the pants and confirms that they were definitely his just last month. 

“Are you wearing anything that’s actually yours? Like, you purchased it yourself or someone else purchased it for you?”

“Uh, I think my underwear is mine.” Tony pulls up the waistband of the pants to check. “Oh, no, wait. These are your boxers. They’ve got the little sailboats on them.”

“Why?”

Tony frowns, “Why do they have sailboats on them? I don’t know. You bought them, not me.”

“What? No, that’s not - that’s not what I mean. Why do you keep wearing my stuff?”

“Because you left it on the wrong side of the tape.”

“Doesn’t mean you have to wear it.”

Tony shrugs, and Bucky can tell that he’s trying to act like it doesn’t mean anything, but he isn’t meeting Bucky’s eyes, either. 

“I’m about to do something that might be insane, depending on what your reaction is,” Bucky says. “But if you don’t like it, or you don’t feel the same, I won’t ever mention it again, and we can just go back to normal, okay?”

Tony eyes him warily. “Yeah, okay, I guess.”

Bucky raises his hand slowly, telegraphing his every move as he takes Tony’s cheek in his palm. He brushes his thumb across Tony’s cheekbone and leans in slowly to give him the chance to stop him if he doesn’t want it. Tony’s eyes widen in shock, but he never moves away. 

As far as first kisses go, this is one is surprisingly the least awkward one he’s ever had. He was expecting it to feel strange, kissing his friend, but it doesn’t. Tony tilts his head to deepen it, and Bucky can taste the lingering hint of mint on his lips. He slips his hands from Tony’s cheek to the nape of his neck, holding him close and trailing his fingers through the short hair there. 

He pulls back only when he needs to breathe, and Tony is grinning at him when he does. “It’s about time you took the hint.”

Bucky laughs and pulls him right back in. 

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr [@ifmywishescametrue](https://ifmywishescametrue.tumblr.com) :)


End file.
